Property Tax

Whilst squandering surplus and tobacco money, HRH Joel I lowered county property taxes. According to WGRZ (on the ball, as usual), Erie County pays the lowest county property taxes in Upstate New York. It's when you add on town/village and school taxes that you discover that New York property taxes are among the highest in the Nation. That's part of the reason why I advocate for an abolition of County government altogether. In any event, everyone agrees that Giambra's property tax rollbacks of the early 2000s will have to be rolled back, at least partially, next year. I call bullshit. Giambra blames the whole thing on Medicaid. Bullshit. Medicaid is definitely part of the problem, but it's not the sole problem. Did you happen to notice that, according to Business First, government pays the most salaries in Erie County? All that government and its concomitant bureaucracy are what makes New York State in general, and Erie County in particular, so inhospitable to private enterprise. In any event, there is now some talk, according to WBEN, of reviewing the County Charter in order fundamentally to change the way Erie County does business. I think that's the right thing to do. We need radical surgery, and these guys are talking about band-aids.